Evaporator



June 1935- J. TOUBORG ET AL EVAPORATQR Filed Oct. 15,

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Patented June 18, 1935 I PATENT OFFICE EVAPORATOB Jens Touborg and Homer E. Rosebrook, Greenville, Mich., assig'nors to Gibson Electric Refrigerator Corporation, Greenville, Mich., a corporation of Michigan Application October 15', 1934, Serial No; 748,386

9 Claims.

This invention relates to improvements in evaporators and, more especially, an evaporator adapted for use in refrigerating apparatus.

Among the features of our invention is the provision of an evaporator that is simple and cheap to construct and eflicient in operation.

The evaporator may be made from two sheets of sheet metal, corrugated and juxtaposed on each other; or it may be made out of one piece of sheet metal and folded over so as to form a body with considerable hollowness, as indicated in the sections, caused by the corrugations which have first been made in the sheet metal. The two sheets, or one sheet bent or folded over along one side, may then be secured together by spot welding or by brazing the two inside surfaces together where they touch each other.

After this is done and the necessary tubes, for the admission and exit of the refrigerant, have been made, the evaporator is ready for mounting in the refrigerator; whereas other evaporators still must pass through a considerable number of operations as, for instance, bending to bring them up into the final shape.

This construction is, therefore, considerably cheaper as it requires only a minimum of operations to produce the final article.

The advantage of this form of evaporator is that every ice tray is in intimate contact with the refrigerated surfaceand each tray will, therefore, be a so-called fast freezer.

Theconstruction of the evaporator is such that it is applicable for use in conection with a flooded system and high or low-side float.

The evaporator is designed to be suspended from the ceiling of the food compartment by means of three supporting members, such as bolts or the like, with, for instance, a threaded portion on the lower end going through provided holes in the evaporator. Two of these bolts go through the two rear corners of the evaporator and the,

third one is intended to be mounted in the front in such away that an adjustment of the height of the front edge of the evaporator is possible, for instance, by adjusting nuts on the supporting member. I

The object of this lifting and lowering the front edge of the evaporator is to make it possible to change the liquid level in the main header in the back of the evaporator where the'suction tube is located.

By changing the liquid level it is possible to determine whether the particular refrigerating unit is overcharged or undercharged with refrigerant and when a unit is slightly over charged or undercharged, it is possible, by a respective lifting or lowering of the front edge of the evaporator, to adjust the liquid level in the back header to a point where the unit will operate as if it were correctly charged.

Another advantage of our improved evaporator is that substantially the entire upper surface of the evaporator is available for freezing water or other articles which might be placed on top of it, whereas in ordinary evaporators, a considerable amount of material is used for vertical sides or walls which is not particularly useful for freezing, or aconsiderable amount of material is used as supports for shelfs which naturally make a more expensive evaporator. In our improved evaporator, the same is formed substantially in the shape of one large flat shelf. As stated, the top of'this may be used for freezing. The underside and exposed parts of the upper side are used for cooling the food compartment in the refrigerator. v

In that'form of device embodying the features of our invention shown in the accompanying drawing-- Figure 1 is a top plan view; Fig. 2 is a view in front elevation; Fig. 3 is a view in end elevation; and Fig. 4 is a view taken as indicated by the line 4 of Fig. 1.

As shown in the drawing, the evaporator is in the general shape of a single horizontal fiat shelf of considerable area formed of an.upper and lower sheet of sheet metal. There may be two separate sheets (as here shown) or the upper and lower sheets may be formed from a single piece of sheet metal folded upon itself.

Before the sheets are fastened together to form the complete evaporator, each one is corrugated asshown in the drawing. The upper sheet we have indicated, in general, by Hi and the lower sheet, by H. vided near its rear edge with a transverse semicylindrical convex corrugation Ill extending substantially from one side to the other. Connectmg with this are three longitudinal corrugations lu Ill and [0 substantially equally spaced across the evaporator and extending forwardly from the corrugation Ill close to the front edge of the shelf. The lower sheet H is provided with a concave corrugation I I adapted to register with corrugations ill to form a transverse header near the rear edge of the shelf. The ends of the corrugations ill and II- are drawn down to the original plane of the header so that the ends of the header will be closed. The lower sheet H is also provided with a series The upper sheet is pro- (here shown as nine) of transverse concave corrugations ll which extend close to-the side edges of the shelf.

In completing the evaporator the two sheets are placed together and then secured by spot welding or by brazing 'the inside surfaces, at least in some places, where they touch. Of course, it is necessary to completely braze or attach the outside edges so that the evaporator will be completely sealed against leakage. In addition to this, the two sheets may be secured together by .the main conduit il near its forward edge. 2| indicates an outlet tube leading from the top of the main header at the rear of the evaporator at the top of such header.

The evaporator is designed to be suspended from the ceiling of the food compartment of a refrigerator by three supporting members, such as bolts or the like, with, for instance, a threaded portion on the lower end going through holes inthe evaporator. For this purpose, the evaporator is provided at its rear corners with the two holes Ill, 30 and at the front edge near the' center with the hole 3|. The two bolts at the rear are indicated by 30', 30', respectively, and the bolt in front is indicated by 3|. By ad- Justing the nuts 3| on the front bolt, the height of the front edge of the evaporator can be altered. By thus lifting or lowering the front edge of the evaporator, it is possible to change the liquid level in the main header in the back of the evaporator where the suction outlet tube 2| is located. 'By thus changing the liquid level, it is possible to determine whether the unit is overcharged or undercharged with refrigerant and it is possible to adjust the liquid level in the back header, in case the evaporator is not correctly charged to a point where the unit will operate substantially as well as if it were correctly charged. 7

The evaporator is adapted to receive ic'e trays on its upper surface between the conduits |l| I 0 and I0 and, also, at the outer sides of the outer conduits. In other words, as shown, the evaporator is designed to receive four ice trays on its upper surface. 1

In the construction shown, it will be seen the. the conduits it, P, IN and the connecting conduits ll form refrigerant-conducting conduits disposed over substantially the entire area of the shelf and all communicating directly or. indirectly with the header at the rear edge of the evaporator. By this construction, liquid refrigerant en- IF and W to the header formed by the portions l0 and I I and such gaseous refrigerant is drawn from the header at the rear of the evaporator by the suction pipe 1|.

While we have shown and described certain embodiments of our invention, it is to be understood that it is capable of many modifications. Changes, therefore, in the construction and arrangement may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as disclosed in the appended claims, in which it is our intention to claim all novelty inherent in the invention as broadly as permissible, in view of the prior art.

What we claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is:

1. An evaporator in' the form of a single substantially flat substantially horizontal shelf with .means for supporting the same in a refrigerator,

said means permitting raising or lowering of one edge of said shelf. 7

2. An evaporator in the form of a substantially flat shelf having a header near one edge, main conduits connected to said header, transverse conduits connecting said main conduits, and means for supporting said evaporator in a refrigerator, said means permitting vertical adjustment of the edge of said shelf opposite said main header.

3. An evaporator in the form of a substantially flat shelf having a header near one edge and refrigerant-conducting conduits disposed over the area of said shelf and connected to said header, and means for supporting said shelf in a refrigerator, said means permitting vertical adjustment of the edge of the shelf opposite the main header.

4. An evaporator formed of upper and lower sheets of metal corrugated and fastened together to form a header near one edge and refrigerantconducting passages disposed over substantially the entire area of the evaporator and communicating with said header, and means for supporting said evaporator in the food compartment of a refrigerator, said means permitting vertical adjustment of the edge of the evaporator opposite the header.

5. An evaporator formed of two sheets of metal fastened together, said sheets being provided with corrugations to form a header near one edge, main 'conduits connected to said header, and transverse conduits connecting the main conduits.

6. An evaporator formed of two sheets of metal fastened together, said sheets being provided with corrugations to form a header near one edge, main conduits connected to said header, transverse conduits connecting the main conduits, and means for supporting raid evaporator in a substantially horizontal position in the food compartment of a refrigerator, said supporting means permitting vertical adjustment of the edge of the evaporator opposite the header.

7. In an evaporator in substantially the form of a single flat substantially horizontal shelf, means for supporting one edge of the shelf in the food compartment of a refrigerator, and means for supporting the opposite edge, said last-mentioned means permitting vertical adjustment of said edge.

8. An evaporator in substantially the form of a single flat substantially horizontal shelf, means for supporting one edge of said shelf in the food compartment of a refrigerator, and a depending bolt for supporting the opposite edge of said shelf, said bolt being provided with' adjusting nuts whereby said edge may be vertically adjusted.

9. An evaporator as claimed in claim 5, in the form of a substantially fiat shelf.

. JENS TOUBORG;

HOMBRE. ROSEBRQOK. 

